RE XVIII

The Red Ensign Standard has been raised over at Kate's.



More good bloggy stuff, even some pitiful entries from this site which somehow made the cut.

Scipio

Scipio You scored 66 Wisdom, 78 Tactics, 50 Guts, and 49 Ruthlessness!

You're most simillar to Scipio in the fact that you're smart and ruthless. Scipio beat Hannibal by luring him back from Western Europe (where he was crushing legion after legion of Roman soldiers trying to gain support from local tribes) by laying seige to his home country of Carthage. Hannibal returned to defend his home and was defeated at the Battle of Zama. Ruthless, but it worked. Scipio was the conqueror of Hannibal in the Punic Wars. He was the son of Publius Cornelius Scipio, and from a very early age he considered himself to have divine inspiration. He was with his father at the Ticino (218), and he survived Cannae (216). The young Scipio was elected (c.211) to the proconsulship in Spain. He conquered New Carthage (Cartagena) almost at once (209) and used the city as his own base; within several years he had conquered Spain. As consul in 205, Scipio wanted to invade Africa, but his jealous enemies in the senate granted him permission to go only as far as Sicily and gave him no army. He trained a volunteer army in Sicily. In 204 he received permission to go to Africa, where he joined his allies the Numidians and fought with success against the Carthaginians. In 202, Hannibal crossed to Africa and tried to make peace, but Scipio's demands were so extreme that war resulted; Scipio defeated Hannibal at Zama (202), returned home in triumph, and retired from public life. He was named Africanus after the country he conquered. His pride aggravated the hatred of his enemies, especially Cato the Elder , who accused the Scipio family of receiving bribes in the campaign against Antiochus III in which Scipio had accompanied (190) his brother. It was only through the influence of his son-in-law, Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, that Scipio was saved from ruin. He retired into the country and ordered that his body might not be buried in his ungrateful city. Later he revealed his great magnanimity by his attempt to prevent the ruin of the exiled Hannibal by Rome.

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 55% on Wisdom You scored higher than 74% on Tactics You scored higher than 29% on Guts You scored higher than 48% on Ruthlessness

Link: The Which Historic General Are You Test written by dasnyds on OkCupid Free Online Dating

A much better quiz than I thought it would be, and yeah, it's spamming for links to its online dating site but so what...

And I thought that I'd get what Andrew got...

Inflatable Brewskis!

In case you're in an area that's short of pubs, you can pack your own:





Although I would kill the guy that brought the darts...

Doing to them what they do to us

When I was a wee lad of 17 attending my first year of University, I had a first year calculus class with a curmudgeonly old professor who looked like Albert Einstein's fatter brother. His classes were standing room only. Seriously, there were 200-300 students jammed into a lecture hall that should have only held about 150.

At the time Brian Mulroney was Prime Minister, and of course everyone was gossiping that this math prof who looked every inch the mathematical genius (wild hair, strange glasses, stranger clothes, and a weird yet effective teaching manner of having running dialogues with himself in which he'd refer to himself in the third person as "wise old fat man") was the ex of a certain Justice Minister at the time.

One of the braver (and prettier) students in the first row decided to ask him at the start of class.

He stared at her for a moment and said:

"All I'll say, is that I'm one of the few people in this country that did to one of them what each and every one of them do to us every day!"

Some of the slower students didn't get it until the thunderous applause started to die down.

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I wonder what reminded me of that this week.

ACE

I should've stated it sooner, but one of my best friends will be posting some entries here on the 'Kraut, under the name Ace.

I went to UBC with Ace. He stood up for me at my wedding in New Orleans to Rue I stood up for him at his wedding in Vancouver.

I sometimes call him Ace-hole.

His opinions can be quite different than mine, which is why I invited him here - who would want to debate someone who thinks exactly the way they do?

A blog dies if there's no new content: hopefully a couple of sparring matches will liven the place up a bit.

I've explained the rules, so there's no reason to take it easy on him.

Oh, and he's a career civil servant, too - so cock those guns and give him both barrels if he tries to slip one past ya...

Thinking of New Orleans

This building is in Penticton, British Columbia, Canada.



Everytime I pass it I can't help but think of the much grander buildings in the French Quarter of New Orleans...



Obviously the residents/owners of this building feel the same way and were compelled to hang out the banner shown.

Random Thoughts about New Orleans

I have been to New Orleans twice. Once in 2000 for a wedding (which coincided with Mardi Gras), and once in 2003 at the start of a 7 day Caribbean Cruise to celebrate both of my parents turning 60.

It is a fantastically fun town, I only wish that I had gone when I was younger & more stupid about drinking so that I could have enjoyed it even more.

There is still two months left in hurricane season, what do you think the odds are that another hurricane hits them?

Per an article of Ron Fournier of the Associated Press. The Army Corps of Engineers asked for $105 million for hurricane & flood programs in New Orleans. This was cut to $42.2 million by the White House and Congress. Yet the legislators & White House approved a $286.4 billion highway bill that included 6000 projects such as dust control for an Arkansas highway, a warehouse on the Erie Canal, and a $231 million bridge to an uninhabited island in Alaska. Maybe they could dam the levees with the bridge?

Canadians who go to the Southern States in the winter are called "Snowbirds". What will they call all the Southerners who flock north every summer & fall to avoid the hurricanes?

Are the looters just exercising their second amendment rights?

The next time an evacuation order is given because of an impending hurricane, how many do you think will try to ride it out?

An Amusing Anecdote by Way of Introduction

Hello. The Kraut has graciously allowed me to make the occassional entry on his site, while many will be of a more political nature, the following will let you know a bit about me.

Last Monday my wife & I took our 18 month old daughter to the Pacific National Exhibition here in Vancouver. My mother came over from Victoria to join us for the day.
One of the great pleasures in having my daughter has been learning about my own childhood from my Mom, as "the Munch" hits the same milestones that I passed 34 years ago.
On the way to the Fair, my mother related a story about my first trip to a Fair.
I was just over two years old, and like many two-year old boys I had a fascination with all sorts of cars, trucks & heavy machinery. Mom & Dad had just taken me inside an exhibition hall which had all sorts of trucks and other heavy machinery, so I excitedly started shouting at the top of my voice "Trucks!, Trucks!, Trucks!..." The only problem was that I couldn't pronounce my "tr"s all that well, and they sounded more like "ff"s. Apparently my mother turned beet red, clamped a hand over my mouth and got me out of the hall as quickly as possible, which of course made me inconsolable.
I'm happy to report that the Munch had a great time at the Fair, seeing all the animals, going on some of the rides, and scarfing down mini donuts, without giving her parents any amusing stories to tell in the future.